Methods

During a 1-year period, 49 critically ill patients in the ICU were included in the study. In the patients in whom it was decided to change the pre-existing catheter due to prolonged stay, recent catheters were inserted in other localisations from the pre-existing localisations (the recent CVC was inserted in the aVCI if the pre-existing CVC was at the VCS, or the opposite). The pre-existing CVC was kept in place for 24 hours and CVP measurements were performed simultaneously via both of the catheters. IAP was measured via urinary bladder and the sedation scores, ventilation status, sedative drug use, PEEP values, peak and mean airway pressures (PAP and MAP) were recorded during the CVP measurements.

Conclusions

We found that mechanical ventilation, PEEP, PAP, MAP and IAP were effective on the difference between CVP values obtained simultaneously via two different routes. Although the mean difference between the pressures obtained via the catheters inserted in the aVCI and VCS (0.9 mmHg) were statistically significant, the clinical importance of this difference may not be important.